As we leave April, which Autism Speaks promotes as World Autism Month, and other organizations have labeled Autism Awareness Month, I want you to know that I do not appreciate the annual celebration.
World Autism Month is brought to us by an organization that has devoted millions of dollars to fund years of genetic research in the hope of finding ‘autism genes.’
It is estimated that 200 to 1,000 genes are implicated in autism. But don’t worry, a new Columbia University study recently identified another 60 new genes. The number of implicated genes informs you that environmental triggers are causing the autism epidemic.
All those wasted research dollars have yielded little information about what causes autism.
But every April, we’re supposed to celebrate this futility?
I do not find the pretty blue lights or bright puzzle pieces charming in any way. To me it has all become signaling to accept the terms of surrender. In my opinion, Autism Awareness has mutated over the past 20 years into Autism Surrender.
And I am not down with surrender.
For me, the response to autism has been advocating and fighting for my kids.
Over the past two decades, I have learned that others are engaged in the same battle – warrior moms and warrior dads.
These are my people. These mothers, fathers, and those who care about them, are the people I advocate for. They are the reasons I write the things I write.
Twenty-five years ago, I could never have envisioned this long strange journey.
I attained autism awareness on a cold, gray March day in 2003.
My wife called me at work to tell me that a psychologist came to our home, assessed my sons and, in about ten minutes, rendered his verdict: Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), an autism spectrum disorder.
And just like that, my sons’ lives, and our lives, were forever changed. What followed was an endless stream of therapies, medical appointments, and often brutal, special education committee meetings.
Caring for our sons dominated every aspect of our lives. Every therapy session, every dollar spent, every decision made, was to help my sons.
Along the way, I met some of those warrior moms and dads who also struggled to help their children, keep their jobs, and keep their families afloat. They have been inspirational to me. These are the toughest, most loving, most generous people you will ever meet.
Their children, like my children, are remarkable.
Do not buy the nonsense that people with autism do not love or do not feel for others.
That is bullshit.
My sons care deeply about their family and others. I have heard other parents say the same thing about their children with autism.
Do not allow the puzzle pieces and blue light propaganda to serve as cover for those who want to deny the humanity of people with autism.
People with autism navigate their lives in quirky, often creative ways. They use everything from keypads to spelling boards to sign language to no language, but, somehow, carve out meaningful lives.
People with autism are to be respected. Their lives are of value.
This is not to minimize the pain, the suffering, the isolation, the judgmental looks of others.
Everyone in my community has seen the judgement in the faces of others when their kids melt down, when a parent has to wrestle their kid to the sidewalk to prevent them from running into city traffic, or when the child has a seizure.
“What is wrong with that kid?”
Just about 20 years ago, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came to know some of the warrior moms and dads when he was fighting to clean up America’s waterways. As he explained to Joe Rogan, 14:20 into the recording, “These women kept following me when I would present (at conferences)…They were the mothers of children who believed their children had been intellectually disabled by vaccines…They were rational. They had done their research…The public authorities said these women were crazy, but they didn’t look crazy to me…I felt that I should listen to them.”
Kennedy recounted to Rogan how one warrior mom named Sarah Bridges, a psychologist from Minnesota, had shown up on his doorstep in Hyannisport, Cape Cod, with a pile of studies and said: “I’m not leaving until you read those.”
Sarah’s son, Porter Bridges, “had been a perfectly normal kid, when he got a battery of vaccines at age two,” Kennedy told Rogan. “He lost the ability to speak, he lost his toilet training. He began head banging, he engaged in other stereotypical behaviors like stimming, hand flapping, toe walking, and got an autism diagnosis…And the vaccine court had awarded him 20 million dollars for acknowledging that the child (Porter) had gotten autism from the vaccines. She didn’t want that to happen to other kids.”
Kennedy listened to Sarah and other parents and had the courage to ask why these kids developed autism.
I found Porter Bridges’ case when I investigated the vaccine court and the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, starting in 2008. I found a total of 83 cases of vaccine-induced brain damage that included autism. The findings are published in Unanswered Questions from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: A Review of Compensated Cases of Vaccine-Induced Brain Injury
I know this is a stunning realization for some, but it seems that the government was lying to us about the connection between vaccine injury and autism.
Sarah Bridges, the author of A Bad Reaction: A Memoir by Sarah Bridges, connected me to Kennedy.
I recall Kennedy telling me all those years ago: “You have to have data. I respect you, but we need data. We need good science.”
Now as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kennedy is still pounding away with the same theme.
We may soon get the good science that Kennedy has been seeking for two decades as Kennedy’s National Autism Coordinator Diana Diaz recently explained to Leland Vittert on News Nation.
Vittert said that he has autism and supports the government search for a cause for autism. Diaz told him that the data on the causes of autism is soon to be released through the national Autism Data Science Initiative.
And it may not just be about vaccine injury.
In September, Kennedy and President Trump announced some concerns about the connection between Tylenol and autism. There is important science for you to consider in the forthcoming book, Tylenol and Autism: Evidence, Scientific Blunders, and Medicine Gone Wrong, by Dr. William Parker.
Earlier this week, Dr. Robert Malone wrote The Rise of Autism Becomes Clearer on his Substack. It seems that a recent study shows that a number of pharmaceutical products, when taken by pregnant women, are associated with increases in autism.
None of this is welcome news for Big Pharma. They want all of us to believe that autism is caused by bum genes. They want us to believe that people with autism were just unlucky. Sadly, it was their destiny.
There are no environmental causes. Big Pharma is not responsible.
The message is clear: Surrender. Take your puzzle pieces and disappear into the landscape of America where we offer you acceptance but avoid the truth about what got you here.
Surrender is unacceptable.
Finding the truth about the cause – or causes – of autism is something I have been fighting for years. When we understand the causes of autism, we will understand how to prevent it.
Kennedy is leading that fight.
One fine April day in the future, we may get to celebrate Autism Truth Month.
I, for one, will be down for that.
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Louis probably knows me, even with my pseudonym here. Our family lives are very parallel. I'm an "OG" as the kid say. Our son is 33. Non verbal, low functioning, severe autism.
My history goes back to PDD-NOS and wait "it's autism." Isn't that 'Rain Man."
I'm an attendee at the original House hearings and Dan Burton and "CAN." "Unlocking Autism", anyone."
We sued Phrma in 2002 v. Thimerosal. They escaped. Help from those they bribe in Congress.
Then onto USCFC and the "kangaroo" system with a 36 month statute of limitations for claims. Who the hell even knows of they have even heard the evidence of 1% of those injured by vaccines.
Who gives a fuck about "table injuries" or the nomenclature of diagnosis when your child is vaccinated, has 104 fever for days and then your entire family's lives are ruined forever?
At 74, I am resigned to the fact that there will never be justice for these crimes in my lifetime. Forget compensation. Forget research that identifies one or more causes. We know the obvious ones already. It's vaccines, stupid. Toxic metals and elements that create cytokine storms.
Americans writ large just don't give a shit. It didn't happen to them. Like Nazi victims they simply avoid the knowledge of how close they are to being "next."
As to Phrma, their strategy is very simple: "You can never find what you are not looking for."
They party on. Louis and I do not care to dance.
“They were the mothers of children who believed their children had been intellectually disabled by vaccines” — vaccines are the number one contributor to autism. By far. So many studies show it and my article shows how autism is really “vaccine induced encephalopathy” : https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/stop-calling-it-autism-start-calling
And then to make it worse, the medical community covers the diagnosis as you described. Treating a physiological disease as psychological is dangerous: https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/how-the-dsm-iii-and-tv-shows-rebranded